We can't stand it, to be alone. We cannot bear it, any more than the monks of old could bear it, men who though they had renounced all else for Christ's sake, nevertheless came together in congregations to be with one another, even as they enforced upon themselves the harsh rules of single solitary cells and unbroken silence. They couldn't bear to be alone.
We are too much men and women; we are yet formed in the image of the Creater, and what can we say of Him with any certainty except that He, whoever He may be--Christ, Yahweh, Allah--He made us, did He not, because even He in His Infinite Perfection could not bear to be alone.
Perhaps I fear him because I could love him again, and in loving him, I would come to need him, and in needing him, I would again be his faithful pupil in all things, only to discover that his patience for me is no substitute for the passion which long ago blazed in his eyes.
How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes?
And what if I never go of my own free will? Will you pitch me from some window so that I must fly or fall? Will you bolt all shutters after me? You had better, because I'll knock and knock and knock until I fall down dead. I'll have no wings that take me away from you.
But remember the overall lesson, that your love for others, and their love for you, that the increase of love in life itself around you, is what matters.
Master, the paintings, the paintings in the storage rooms!" I cried. "Forget the paintings. It's too late. Boys, run from here, get out now, save yourselves from the fire." Knocking the attackers back, he shot up the stairwell and called down to me from the uppermost railing. "Come, Amadeo, fight them off, believe in your strength, child, fight.
There was never any innocence for us, there was never any springtime. There was never any chance, no matter how beautiful the twilight gardens in which we wandered. Our souls were too out of tune, our desires crossed and our resentments to common and too well watered for the final flowering.
